NASA International Space Apps Challenge

12 March 2012 - On 21 and 22 April, NASA, along with the Met Office is convening an International Space Apps Challenge in Exeter.

In collaboration with governments and organisations around the world, the International Space Apps Challenge will bring together people on every continent, and in space, to create open solutions with space data.

An initiative of the Open Government Partnership, the
International Space Apps Challenge will showcase the impact that people working together around the world can have on addressing challenges, both on earth and in space, by using open government data resulting from space technology.

Events are planned in cities around the globe and encompass far more than just the development of mobile apps. The event will focus on four challenge areas-software, open hardware, citizen science and data visualisation-providing a platform for open innovation and collaborative problem solving.

Charles Ewen, Head of Data and Applications at the Met Office said: 'We are delighted to be partnering with NASA and hosting the European event for the International Space Apps Challenge. This will help us to develop new and innovative ways to mix weather and climate data with other data sets in ways that add value to the public, our international partners and ourselves."

Teams at the event will also be using our recently launched DataPoint web service. This gives access to operational UK weather data and observations as well as exploiting other open data sets available from the Met Office and other participating organisations.